Halloween night full of tricks and treats!

Mackenzie wanted to spend the night at a friends house, which was fine by me, but she had to do 45 minutes of "family" trick or treating first! :) So we went to her friends neighborhood and all the kids had a blast! I did dress up, but I forgot to have anyone take a picture of me...but I dressed up like I did the other night when I took photos of a Halloween Benefit party...so I uploaded a picture that Aunt Theresa took of me...

carving pumpkins...

Everyone had fun carving pumkins this year. Kennedy had more fun trying to EAT the pumpkin mush, but as you can see from the look on her face, she didn't like it too much... :)

just another day at the office

This is a typical day for TJ... ;)

You know you live in Green Bay, Wisconsin when your kids...

...play dress up with winter hats and mittens! They were pretending to be *pretty snowmen*! Funny thing is it actually flurried some snowflakes late this afternoon!

Natalie's first talk in Primary...

Today during sacrament at church, the primary had their program...meaning that the primary kids pretty much ran the service. They sang songs and each was able to go up to the microphone and talk. It was adorable, and all our kids did fantastic! I am the music director for the primary, and boy, do I count on my kiddos to be there! We have a very small primary (about 15 kids)...and if you do the math, our kids make up a large percentage of primary! Alex has been doing play practice for Peter Pan each Sunday, so he has not been there to learn the program...but, being the actor he is, he just did it! :)

Also, Natalie was asked to give her first talk today. She is a "Sunbeam" in primary, so the littlest of the kids (ages 3-11). She stood in front of everyone at the podium and did a great job! She talked about how to be like Jesus. We are very proud of all the kiddos!

adding the photo from the bike ride

This is the photo that was from the 14 mile bike ride that we did on Saturday, October 4th (see that post for details!) :)

What wonderful news about Grandpa Jim!

Most of you know that Brian's dad (Grandpa Jim) has been fighting a rare form of cancer...thymic cancer. We are so blessed for the news that we received yesterday afternoon! After 6 rounds of heavy chemo, the cancer is extremely minimal now...they plan to zap out the rest with radiation. What is so miraculous about this, is that this rare form of cancer is supposed to be resistant to chemo. Again, what a blessing it is to have Heavenly Father answer our many prayers! We love you Grandpa Jim!

***This photo was taken in Phx when Brian flew out to visit his parents after they heard the news about the cancer earlier in the year. The whole family went to a D-backs game, and this is one of the last photos with Grandpa with his hair! Brian's brother, Brad, moved back to the states after being in Italy, to support his parents during this trying time. How wonderful it is to see a family pull together at tough times like this. I truly believe Grandpa Jim's recovery is directly related to the prayers, fasting, and "togetherness" that has been shown during this trial... The other photo was taken when I went out to Phoenix with TJ in July (he was almost 2 months old) Grandpa Jim was such a trooper during those hard chemo treatments...always being positive and optomistic about his prognosis!

My new favorite addiction! :)

I am in LOVE with a new website I found...freecycle.com

It is a group within Green Bay that "freecycle's" items they don't want anymore. Someone posted that they had 9 pairs of little girls shoes that were in both Kennedy and Natalie's sizes...so I emailed her, she put them on her front porch, and I picked them up! I also scored two jackets for both girls that look absolutely brand new! One is Columbia Sportswear and the other is Oshkosh, so they are not cheap jackets. Everything was free!

I had a big box of girls clothing that they had outgrown. Instead of hauling it to Goodwill, I put a post up, and yesterday afternoon someone came and took it off the front porch...what a fantastic concept!

***on a side note, I just got the canvas delivered for above our fireplace...thought since I was taking photos, I would show that off! I just love it!

Kennedy gets birthday balloons!

Grandma and Grandpa Hasse sent Kennedy birthday balloons and a white teddy bear! My, oh my, I didn't realize how much joy could come from one little bunch of balloons! She started going crazy running into them and batting them around....laughing all the while!

Today TJ is 5 months!!!

We broke out the Excersaucer for the celebration!

It's Kennedy's birthday!

It was such a wonderful day celebrating Kennedy's 2nd birthday!!! We went to the pumpkin patch and went on a hayride to pick our pumpkins...



















Then we went to Chuck E Cheese to have cake and pizza!








She loved the phone that MeMa gave her!




Then we went to "Zoo Boo"...everyone was dressed up and we went on a haunted hay ride through the forest....oooooh, scary!!!

kids by the corn field

Aunt Theresa just sent these to me from last week when she was here... I think they are so adorable! :)